


Tumbling Flash

by alicat54c



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Flash loses his powers, Gen, Pre-Season/Series 01, coldflash - Freeform, coldwave, heatflash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 17:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicat54c/pseuds/alicat54c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny tumblr Flash prompts I wrote and collected here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The talk

…  
“So, that’s how sex works.” Barry said, face failing to maintain his unembarrassed facade.

Michael frowned. “What about if I wanna do it with girls?”

“Girls? Uh.” Barry shot his partner a terrified look.

Though thoroughly enjoying the show, Len smoothly stepped in. “We’ll have your Aunt Lisa talk to you about how to treat a lady right. For now, how about some ice cream?”  
…


	2. Vampire AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vampire!Barry AU, where instead of being a meta, our favorite speedster is of the undead, but still a hero. He gets peckish, and bites Len during a heist, by accident.

“You have hemochromatosis, by the way.”

The thief rolled his eyes to face his unwilling nurse. “What?”

Barry ran his tongue over his teeth unconsciously, not noticing how his patient followed the movement with trepidation. 

“It means your body captures iron too efficiently. The trait is common in people of european descent, because it makes them more resistant to bacterial diseases, so they survived the Black Death better, but it can cause your organs to basically rust, and it’s hard to diagnose, but people usually treat it by giving blood every few weeks-“ He bit his lip, stoping the deluge of words.

Len raised an eyebrow. “If you wanted an invitation to suck on my neck, kid, there are better ways of asking.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” The young man’s face was scarlet as blood, my blood Len thought idly, rushed to his cheeks. “I just meant you shouldn’t take any iron supplements or anything while you’re recovering, because blood loss won’t make you anemic!”

“And here I was wanting to test out the new fainting couch Lisa installed in the hideout.” The thief drawled. “Pity, I thought your kind liked the swooning victims.”

Barry pressed his hands to his face. “Oh my god, stop! Nothing in Dracula is actually true!”

“Except for the whole vampires thing.”

The hands lowered, and the younger man’s expression turned sorrowfully serious. “Yeah. Except- except for that.”

The thief hummed in his throat, and winced as the slight movement aggravated the two pinprick holes along his jugular. The kid made a move to adjust the hastily taped on gauze, but flinched back as blue eyes snapped evaluate to him like one would a wolf in the room.

“Sorry.” He stuttered, and immediately clenched his hands back in his lap.

The gaze turned icily ponderous. “So, is this the part where I’m silenced, and you turn me into your Igor minion?”

Barry pursed his lips over his fangs. “I don’t do that.”

“But you could.”

“I don’t.”

He hummed again, more carefully this time. “Then, what, you’re going to keep me here until I’m well enough to be you midnight snack?”

“No!” The kid’s eyes flashed yellow like lightning, highlighting the deep red undertones in his iris. “I’m not like-“ He looked away again. “You’re free to go as soon as you can stand.”

Len made a point to look from his too pale limbs back to the vampire. “Then it seems that we’re going to be spending a lot of quality time together.”  
…


	3. E2 Soulmates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was an add on to a Soulmate AU, where Len from E2 was Barry's soulmate, but E1 and E2 have different methods of identifying your soulmate. E1 had first words your soulmate says to you on your skin, and E2 had some kind of tattoo like soul marking.

coldflash soulmates au E2 len and e1 barry  
...

It’s only when Barry is bidding his E-2 friends farewell, that Jay comments on the fact that his soul mark has changed color.

“My what?” Barry asked. Jay indicated the scrawling blue design just visible on the edge of the younger man’s throat. Using his cell phone as a mirror, Barry examined the mark, bemused. “It’s never done that before…”

“Soul marks change from white to a different color when you meet your soul mate, and to black if they’ve died.” The older speedster explained slowly. “I thought you guys said you had those here?”

“Yeah, but they’re usually words!” Barry scrambled to pull open his shirt, where next to the trailing blue mark, a short script of letters hung just beneath his collar bone.

“So, who is mister ‘Hello there’?” Jay asked.

“I don’t know! It’s such a common phrase, I just lost hope that-”

“Calm down Barry!” Jay tried to soothe. “Think back, who did you meet on Earth-2?”

“No one!” The younger speedster panicked. “Just-”

Blood drained from his face.

“I have to go back!”


	4. Flash Finale AU Prompt

Where are all the fics about this strange new alternate reality Barry created when running through time to save his mother? 

Like, is Barry still the Flash, and, if not, then did Ollie die? Is Len still just a thief or is he Captain Cold? Did another hero pop up in Barry’s place? Since the Legends crew was outside of time, were they effected?

Is Mick suddenly thrown off balance to return to an alternate version of Central than the one he left, where a different (not younger, not more sane, just different) version of the Rogues run around Central? How does he feel when he sees his (former/alternate/NOTHIS) partner smirking after a heist gone right? (And there I go slipping in the coldwave, *sigh*.)

How does Barry feel when he finds out that, while he has his mom and dad alive and well, he doesn’t know Iris and Joe and Wally (I bet they’re going to do this to rehash the westallen love thing anyway)? Is there another (not the Flash/not an orphan/NOTHIM) Barry stumbling around, with a head full of science and no interest in forensics (his father, his motivation, was never in jail after all)?

Then Barry (our Barry/ the Flash/ALONE), because he still has his powers in this alternate place he created, just runs around saving people, because what else can he do? He might flirt with Iris, the chipper new reporter trying out her legs at interviewing Central’s illusive hero, but when he sees her smile and the ring on her finger with a diamond to match Detective Thawn’s love struck eye, he turns away. She’s not his/ not her/ NOTHIS.

So Barry Allen- or maybe not. He may just be Allen. Allen, who doesn’t exist and doesn’t have any papers, who can’t show his face in public lest the other Barry(the only Barry now) sees his double and begin to wonder about the impossible. So the Flash might work in a bar making drinks, because the hours are good for his hero job, he’s always been good at chemistry, and Saints and Sinners doesn’t ever ask for his personal information when they pay him salary.

And a lonely time traveler, with too many thoughts and years and unspeakable things that never happened behind his flaming eyes, might walk in for a drink at a familiar place one day. He never cared much for secrecy, and he doubts whatever version of himself exists in this timeline particularly cares. The kid met him when he was a teenager, after all, and kept the fact that there was a time traveling version of himself out there somewhere well under wraps.

And the Flash might recognize him, but, of course, wouldn’t be recognized himself out of costume.

But Mick, well, he’s spent too much time around the Time Masters to not be able to see an anomaly when one’s standing right in front of him. But he doesn’t work for them any more, so...what does he care?

But misery (and time, which is nearly the same thing, but less kind) loves company, and Mick finds himself coming back between missions to stare at the twitchy brunette.

Then Leonard Snart walks in one day (alone, because it wasn’t like his big diamond heist was stopped by the Flash all those months ago, prompting him to get back in touch with his partner and sister).

Mick’s had enough time to burn through his own emotions, so manages to catch the bartender’s lingering gaze, and the way his hands move automatically to clean a glass over and over with a rag, even though it’s not going to get any cleaner.

Len sits at the bar and smirks. The kid flushes and looks away quickly to fill his order, muttering under his breath something about how, “Of course Cold would want a white Russian.”

Now that’s…interesting.  
…


	5. S1 AU: Eobard in prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Barry Allen and the others didn't let Harrison Wells (Eobard Thwane) go and the latter was imprisoned inside Star Labs, how would the episode, "Fast Enough" continue from there?

frostbite883 asked:

If Barry Allen and the others didn't let Harrison Wells (Eobard Thwane) go and the latter was imprisoned inside Star Labs, how would the episode, "Fast Enough" continue from there?

...

Hm. Well, if Eobard was thrown in pipeline-jail the episode might continue the same, as he would still tell Barry his intentions and motivations for time travel, and Barry would still go make the singularity to save his mom.

But.

And here’s a fun one.

Say, instead of throwing Eo in the pipeline, they turn him over to the CCPD? Here’s proof that Henry Allen is innocent, Barry would say. This is the man in the lightning.

Then, someone might slip to a certain General’s replacement that there was a new arrival to the prison in need of special restraints, and he just so happened to have one of Eiling’s tools to keep a speedster’s speed locked away. 

So, Wells in in jail awaiting trial, and Barry is more optimistic than he ever let himself be in a long while.

That feeling lasts right up until Iris asks him to be maid of honor at her and Eddie’s wedding. Eddie’s still casting him indeciferable looks, and Iris hasn’t had a chance to talk with Barry at all since this whole thing started. He can see she elects to ignore her beau’s paranoia. But Barry…Barry can’s.

So he politely declines, recommending that she ask one of her college friends.

Next time Barry sees Eddie, their eyes meet once, before they look away.

When Eo’s court date is called up, Barry stands as witness, and the whole unbelievable truth spills over the televised world as the first ever public prosecution of a meta human. On the stand, Barry can see Eobard’s smirk twist into something vile when he is asked why he apparently ran back in time to kill Barry’s mother.

He knows then and there that the Reverse Flash will give up his nemesis’s identity, throwing Barry’s name into light. He knows this, and accepts it as an easy price for his father’s freedom.

But other people have a less cool attitude to such useful information being made invalid.

A blast of chilling white freezes the stand, and a mundane gunshot cracked a moment later, as the courtroom descended into chaos. Barry gaped as the devil of his nightmares was summarily frozen and shattered into a thousand pieces.

That was…what?

The court found Henry Allen innocent at the end of the day, for while the story of time travel was ludicrous, a psycho with super powers going on a murder spree was not.

Of course, Henry would still leave the city after getting out of jail. Even exonerated he wouldn’t be able to find a job, and he knew too many other part time jail residents to risk passing them on the street.

Barry was still crestfallen at the news, but decided to not change his plans to move out of Joe’s house.

Ignoring the fact that Wally had appeared to add drama into the West household, Joe kept pestering Barry about why he wasn’t hanging out with Iris any more. Barry could only take so many speeches about how if Eddie was giving him trouble, Joe would talk to him, and how the blonde was clearly not the right guy for Iris if he was isolating her from her brother, the only guy who ever truly loved and deserved her, bla bla bla.

After the fourth time Barry explained that, no, it wasn’t Eddie, Barry just didn’t want to be the point of conflict in his friends’s marriage, to deaf ears, he decided to move out.

It wasn’t Eddie, really. And he loved Iris enough to let her go. He had no right to force his feeling onto her and spoil her happiness, because confessing anything now on he eave of her wedding would only make her cry. His love was the kind that started as a little boy and was never grown out of. What she and Eddie had was the kind of emotion developed between two adults, with all the compromises and growing that entailed. No, he couldn’t ruin that.

So he got an apartment near Star Labs, which he could afford while still feeding himself the ungodly amount of food his body required.

Little did he know that his hole in the wall flat was just below another notable person in Central City’s super roster.

And when Barry nearly crashes into Captain Cold while carrying two armfuls of groceries up the stairs, he nearly swallowed his tongue.

Snart just quirked an eyebrow, eyeing him from his mussed hair to his melted shoes and back again.


	6. cold wave creature AU

Mick met him in a field, and wouldn’t have noticed if not for the flicker of flames reflected blue in the other’s eye.

His head jerked to the side, finally tearing itself from the raging house fire trying in vain to be put out by the scampering fire crew.

The teen blinked, face still blank as the echoing screams of his parents (and his brother, oh god, his little brother) echoed through his ears, nearly drowned out by the enticing crackle of burning wood.

“Hello,” he said, voice low to not attract any attention.

The fox blinked, still like a snow sculpture under the brush.

In the back of Mick’s mind, beneath the delectable dancing crackling pop of fire, he wondered why this fox still had a winter coat so late in the summer. Perhaps it had escaped from captivity at the fur farm down the road…or did they only have mink there? It didn’t matter.

New sirens added to the cacophony. Mick let his eye stray down the road for a moment, and the fox was gone when he looked back.  
…

The next time they saw each other, long after Mick had forgotten the first, was in a Juvenile Detention Center.

The pyro saw a group of kids surrounding a noticeably smaller figure. He would have walked on by, if not for the screaming yipping yelp that tore through the smallest figure’s lips as the others fell on him.

Curiousity peaked, Mick waded his way through the bodies, felling them with a fist used to farm labor, but easily able to accommodate a new lot in life. When the last of them realized the odds for them were evening, they scattered, leaving a bleeding boy in their wake.

Again, Mick would have left, curiousity sated, if not for the burnished blue flame flickering under the kid’s fingers, cauterizing a stab wound in his side.

“Neat.” He crouched down, prompting too blue eyes to meet his with a snarl. The teeth were too big for such a human mouth. Mick raised his hands placatingly, reminded of those stray dogs that he would always keep in the barn before his father shot them for going after the chickens. “Can you do that again?”

The kid glowered, pushing his back against the wall to support himself as he stood. “Do what?”

“That thing with your hand.”

“What thing?” The glower gained icy warning.

Mick cocked his head. “The thing with the fire. Can you teach me?”

“You’re crazy.” The kid panted, sweat beading on his brow as his body began to go into shock from the stab. 

The pyro frowned, but decided he might as well call someone to get the kid medical help. See if that jogged his memory.

Unfortunately, his good deed of a lifetime did not prompt more fire. Just a new roommate.   
…

“What was that about?” Len asked, curious as ever.

Mick shrugged, spooning at his canned peas. One of the councilors had held him back at the cafeteria door to speak with him. “I’m out on the first.”

“Oh.” The smaller figure looked down at his food, scowling. “I’m here for another two months.”

Dark eyes blinked, lumbering through the obvious calculation of Len minus Mick plus anyone else in the vicinity to piss off equals…

That afternoon, he used the last of his smuggled matches to light the work shed where they kept the gardening tools on fire.

After a sever talking to and a week in solitaire, he was back in his room with Len.

“You really lost your cool. You only had a few weeks left, and you blew it like that.”

Mick shrugged. “Just keeps me here longer is all.” 

A calculating expression flitted across the other’s face, before being covered by indifference. 

Tiny blue flames floated close to the ceiling that night, entrancing in their un-burning dance, in a silent thank you.  
…

“So, do you, like, have super powers or something?” Mick asked one night, trying to catch a spark of blue as it danced closer.

Shifting from the bed nearby. “What?”

“Are you like an Xman?”

A pregnant pause, full of calculation. “I’m a kitsune.”

Mick hummed gruffly. “What’s that then?”

“It means I’m a fox.”

“Yeah? That like a super power?”

“Runs in my family.”

“Yeah?”

“It was my mother.” Len’s tone was clipped. “She was a fox wife, until my…father broke her condition upon their marriage. Then she left.”

Blue light shivered, and Mick cupped it protectively in his palm. “ ’s all right. Plenty a people’s got parents that run out on em.”

Len’s head flinched to the side, eyes blue and freezing. “It was not in her power to take my sister and I. Otherwise she would have. It was her condition.”

The flames flared for a heartbeat, still giving off no heat, before settling. “Didn’t mean anything by it. What’s that mean? She sick or something?”

He could almost see the indulgent smile as Len answered. “No. If a mortal asks a kitsune to stay, then there’s a condition. It’s like a promise. And if the condition gets broken, then the kitsune leaves everything behind and vanishes.”

“Sounds stupid. What if the kitsune’s got stuff tucked under the bed they wanna go back for?”

A barely there laugh. “Yeah…but it’s tradition.”  
…

When the last day of Len’s sentence loomed, Mick looked down at Len over the lunch table. “What you gonna do when you get out?”

The fox stirred his mysterious meal, hands poised. “Oh, nothing much.”

Mick grunted. “Need anyone to do it with?”

“You want to be partners?” Len’s head tilted fractionally, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him before. Mick knew an act when he saw one, but shrugged to play along anyway.

“Got nothin better to do.”

Glacial eyes blinked up at him, and lips pulled back over a feral smile. “I have a few conditions.”

Mick grunted again. “Let’s hear em.”

The expression on the other’s face sent a shiver down his spine, like cool blue flames skittering over his skin.  
…

And so they worked together, the fox and his fire, for years. There was friction, like a match over flint, but nothing a mutual beatdown and shouting match couldn’t fix.

That was, until…

Mick startled away, his whole body feeling like it was floating in a cloud of ash. Cuffs rattled on both his bandaged wrists as he tried to sit up in the hospital bed, managing only to slide his head a few inches up the pile of pillows.

His eyes scanned the dim room, noting the armed officers visible just beyond the glass door, and the bars on the open window.

Bars which even a cat could slip through, or something bigger.

Soot greyed fur bristled, and twin tails lashed against the hospital’s linoleum floor. “I should have left you in there to burn, Mick. You lost sight of the score.”

The pyro grunted, unable to speak easily through the myriad of tubes prodding his face.

“You broke my condition Mick.” The fox’s tails lashed again. “You lost your cool, and nearly your life.”

He gurgled in the back of his dry throat, ending in an upswing sound of query.

Len blinked his too blue eyes. “It’s tradition that I tell you why I’m leaving.”

Mick managed to level a disbelieving stare at his…former partner, laced with enough heat to make his point clear.

The fox bared his teeth. “I’m not the one who got you into this mess Mick.” Light paws padded across the floor, claws scraping, as Len crossed to the bed. 

In a flick of his tails, Mick felt the constricting lock of the cuffs on his wrists loosen. 

“This is the last time you’ll see me.” The fox snarled, before leaping back to the barred window, vanishing.   
…

Months later, Mick was sitting in a warehouse, playing with matching.

His cell phone rang, and he put it on speaker without looking at the number, hopeful for a job. Small fires were getting boring.

“Mick.”

The tone was unmistakable even with half its resonance garbled and lost.

“Thought I broke your condition,” Mick grunted over the phone, striking matches with calm determination.

“I’ve got a new condition.” 

He could practically see the sly upturn of lips and lowering of lids, culminating in a sharp playful expression, which Mick knew spelled fun and property damage. 

“I’m listening.”

…

Bonus:

Flash blinked down at the fluffy bristling white fox, nearly smothered by the blue parka. It growled at him. The speedster’s lips twitched. 

“So, Len, I gotta ask: What does the fox say?”

“Fuck you.”

…


	7. Displaced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is the original prompt:
> 
> http://songbirdie-101.tumblr.com/post/139161748381/can-we-talk-about-insecure-and-bashful-barry
> 
> Never finished the full thing, so this is a bit disjointed. And by 'a bit' I mean very.

…  
…Displaced  
…  
Barry didn’t know why he expected it to work.

Time wraiths aside, running to change the past hadn’t ever played out like he wanted or expected. Case in point; he never wondered what had become of his past self, but given current circumstances, he probably really /really/ should have.

So when he leapt through the singularity, expecting to travel back over a decade, and found himself instead tripping down the stairs of his forensic’s lab, he could have hit himself over the head for his idiocy. 

Now he was stranded a year before the particle accelerator incident, a year before his fateful trip to Starling City, a year before becoming the Flash.

Shit.  
…

No one really noticed his freakout. Joe always was concerned with his work, and Barry had forgotten how they never really spoke much beyond a professional capacity, until after his extended stay in the hospital, and subsequent super powers. 

Iris was still his best friend, but she had classes and a degree to finish. Going to the particle accelerator opening had been such a grand event for Barry, mostly because that was the first chance he had to hang out with his foster-sister in ages.

So, when the forensic scientist tumbled down the stairs, spilling case files and coffee, then requested the rest of the day off to re-gather his scattered dignity, no one payed much attention.

Luckily, his stuttered apology, kicked puppy expression, and bruises spreading of his arms and head got him a little sympathy.

The former speedster limped to the bus stop, where he waited half an hour for the bus that circulated to a stop near his apartment complex. Three blocks and a set of stairs later, Barry curled up on his bed, trying to cal the fevered breaths ventilating through his body. 

His palms pressed into his face so hard, he was sure it would cause new bruises to form. And those wouldn’t just instantly heal anymore…er, yet? Time travel wreaked havoc on tenses.

“Ok. Ok.” The future speedster chanted to himself. “I can do this. No problem.” 

He wiped at his stinging eyes.

“Right. I need- I can wait. It’s only-“ He checked the date on his phone. 

December 11 2012. 

Exactly a year until the particle accelerator explosion.

Yeah. Ok. Yeah. He could do this. Just a year. Just a year, and he would be the Flash again.

Breath catching, but at a more acceptable rate than before, Barry ran his hands over his face for a final time, before looking around his small apartment. First things first, he needed a shower.

Then maybe some food.  
…

“Slow down there Barry! You’ll lose your girlish figure if you keep eating like that.” Iris was managing the register at Jitters, her kind smile just as he remembered, and just what he needed.

Barry flushed, too used to ordering with the expectation of being hungry again afterwards. “Uh, I guess just one muffin then?” He said, trying to recall normal serving sizes. “And a coffee?”

“Coming right up!” his foster-sister chirrped.  
…

Why did he think that he could run fast enough to go back over a decade without the added boost of power from the accelerator, like the first time he went back? His future self probably had a similar trick to time flashing, tricks which Barry at the time did not.  
…

 

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Cisco’s mouth curled in the half amused confusion of a smile he only ever wore when when he thought he was being pranked.

Barry hesitated a step back, grin faltering. His hand fell. “Ah, no. Sorry. I must have confused you for someone else.”  
…

He should be able to do this! He had done this, back when-

Barry slammed his fist into the sand bag, and felt his knuckles scream.  
…

Bile burned the back of his throat. Eobard, how could he have forgotten? His cameras were probably in place everywhere still.

He clenched his fists. He couldn’t do anything. He didn’t have Cisco’s mechanical knowhow to disable the cameras remotely.  
…

“Cold!” He squeaked, leaping back from the blue clad officer.

The thief raised an eyebrow, icy eyes calculating. “Sorry, think you have me confused with someone else.” The lack of a drawl in his voice threw Barry for a loop.

He quickly backed away, chuckling along with the thief, currently rooting through the evidence locker.  
…

He clenched his fists until the short nails on his fingers drew blood. Barry swore, and fumbled for a bandaid. Now he would have to deal with a painful nuisance for the week it would take for that to heal.

…

Who could he even talk to about this?

Joe was about ready to crack down on Barry for believing in the impossible, like he had on that first case with Clyde Mardon. Iris kept shooting him concerned looks when he went to Jitters for a drink, and he found her eye straying more than once to the old psychiatric business cards the precinct always mailed to the house.

Outside of them… he didn’t have anyone.

The lightning had given him more than super powers, it had given him friends. And without that…

Cisco and Caitlin were still happily at Star Labs, their careers bright and hopeful.

Eobard was still masquerading as Wells, biding his time to set off the particle accelerator.

Eddy hadn’t even transferred to Central yet.

Oliver and Felicity would only regard him with suspicion if he tried to take even a step into Starling.

His father… he was still in jail, and any conversation there would be under camera scrutiny.

Barry pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

“You ok there kid?” Drawled a familiar voice.

Barry’s head snapped up.

Leaning against the door of his lab a familiar figure clad in an officer’s uniform looked down at him, with his arms crossed ponderously over his chest. “I’m here working on some evidence for a case. Saw the light on, and thought I’d see who was still here so late.”

Barry was sorely tempted to call for someone and expose the thief’s charade. But… Snart was a rock of familiarity in the former hero’s tumultuous life. 

The smirk, the saunter, the puns- they all grated on his nerves like sand paper, but in a chillingly familiar way.  
…

“Snart?” 

The thief sauntered closer, arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing a tight black ensemble, with a darker than navy coat on top.

“Careful Scarlet, someone might think that you were happy to see me.”

“Wha-what?”

Cold smirked. “Funny thing about time travel, is that when you brake rather important time traps, there are some interesting unforeseen consequences.”  
…

Barry threw the knife across the room. “I used to be able to help people!” He crumpled to his knees. “I used to be able to do…anything! Now look at me!”

The thief watched impassively. 

“Well?” Barry spat. “Say something?”

Cold raised an eyebrow. “I don’t waste my time on people who are worthless.”

“Then why are you still here?” 

The other dark brow rose to join the first, and Cold’s lips quirked. Barry hiccuped, a dawning warmth spreading through the back of his skull.  
…

The trip to Starling was…exactly as he remembered it. The excitement he felt at seeing Felicity and Oliver was sincerely genuine, though the instant kinship and friendliness seemed to throw the Arrow off balance, even more than it had the first time.

He didn’t recall the particulars of the case, having done it so long ago, but he remembered enough to make educated guesses about what to try to re-solve this week’s mystery and save his friends.

As he left for the final time on the train back to Central, Barry couldn’t help the swoop in his stomach. This was it. So, so close, and he would finally be himself again.

…

He pulled the iron chain connected to the skylight, entranced as if he was following a script.

An explosion rang out over the city, letting loose a dome of crackling orange light.

Over head the clouds congealed under the angry throws of destiny.

A bolt of lightning flashed from the heavens, and Barry was gone.  
…


End file.
